This man, with no knowledge of such a society, but considering what his fellow beings were, what the human mind is, what questions it poses, what answers it demands, would reply: “In that society you would discover the worship of a Creator, the affirmation that he had revealed himself; a mysterious link between the divine and the human, comparable to the link between the unthinking matter of our bodies and the living essence within. It would have sacrifice and veneration combined. It would sanctify objects, places, persons and rites; it would have central institutions, and in proportion to its vitality a multitude of lesser activities; it would have symbols which it would distinguish from realities and forms of reality which it would attach to symbols; for man without a soul is a corpse, and man without a body is a wraith. This supposed society which you bid men imagine would certainly present in their highest form such elements as History has also discovered, disjointedly appearing, often perverted, often degraded, in the various (and ineffective) spiritual experiments or lapses of mankind.” Then, one might say to such a man, such a general scholar and observer of the unique animal, man, at prayer, “Should there conceivably be such a home upon the earth, how otherwise would you know it?” He could but answer, “Its nature would be such that it would satisfy to the full the demands of men; it would be unique so as to correspond to man himself who is unique on earth, and it would grant him fulness and repose.” Such and such alone is the Catholic Church. If it be not what it claims to be, then all is void. FOOTNOTES [1] The Anglican authority and scholar, Dr. Lightfoot. [2] For instance, he says there cannot have been a dragon under the Capitol because dragons are only found in Africa! [3] For instance, the absurdity about the tides, and the argument from the phases of Venus. [4] “Educated” Europe meant a far larger body in Catholic times than it does now. Universities were then popular institutions and their attendance was from every class. [5] Taking the date of Pentecost as A. D. 29. [6] Thus, a man who says, “While rejecting all dogmas and creed I revere the vaguer part of the traditional moral teaching of Jesus” is essentially a Protestant, not a sceptic, or Pagan: for such do not revere any part of our morals. Protestant also, not Pagan, is the man who confines himself to “the authentic teaching of Jesus” freed from all later stories of the marvellous and all the sophistries of Theology, which “authentic teaching” he picks out of the heap by his own infallibility. For the true sceptic or Pagan has no more use for the “authentic” fragments than for all the rest. He is equally indifferent to the whole. [7] Heresy = Αιρεσις--“Picking and choosing.”